Racing notes: Stewart just hopes to make it to the starting block

Monte Dutton

Friday

Sep 14, 2012 at 12:01 AMSep 14, 2012 at 3:06 PM

JOLIET, Ill. – If Tony Stewart can just make it till Sunday, he’ll be fine.

Three times Stewart has won the annual Sprint Cup race at Chicagoland Speedway, including last year’s Geico 400. But, as the reigning champion recalled, twice he has crashed in practice. In 2004, he won the race afterwards.

“The first time (2004), Hermie Sadler blew a motor and before the caution cam out, I crashed in his oil and went to the hospital, and I missed the rest of the day,” Stewart said. “The very next year, I blew a tire in practice and J.J. Yeley had to qualify for me.

“It’s one of those places where as long as I gt through Friday, I feel like we’ve got a shot at it.”

It produces round cookies – What separates Chicagoland Speedway from what is often called its “sister track” in Kansas is the fact that even the back straight is mildly curved.

That’s right, NASCAR novices. The straights are curved.

Nearly 40 percent of the schedule takes place on tracks that are similar, hence the cliché “cookie cutter.”

“Even though it’s a cookie-cutter race track, I look forward to it because of the 18-degree banking and the fact that it’s kind of unique,” Ryan Newman said. “Chicago is really a big circle. It’s always a track that has been rewarding if you are good in the corners because even the back straightaway has a kink in it.”

Stenhouse is set – When Ricky Stenhouse Jr. takes over for Matt Kenseth next year at Roush Fenway Racing, he will do so with sponsorship from Bst Buy, Fifth Third Bank and Zest.

Concerning this zesty relationship, Jack Roush said, “Ricky (Stenhouse) is a very lucky young driver because he is able now to step in to a mature team, (and) regardless of how the personnel winds up being distributed next year, he winds up taking one of the three seats at our table, which have been very good seats this year based on the work that Robbie Riser has done on the manufacturing side and all the crew chiefs at the race track.”

Lost amid the frivolity – The Chase is on, but even though neither of the Richard Petty Motorsports drivers is in it, their teams are going through shake-ups. The teams of both Marcos Ambrose and Aric Almirola are undergoing widespread personnel shifts, the most notable being the swap of crew chiefs Mike Ford to Ambrose and Todd Parrott to Almirola.

Fun with fractions -- Clint Bowyer, evaluating his past history in the Chase: “I look at it as, we’ve run third, fifth and fifth. We were 60 1,000ths of an inch from fifth last time and it still (ticks) me off thinking about it.”

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